Bread without an oven?

Making bread is complicated and time consuming, at least that's what I think. That's why I was so happy to find this recipe for a bread you make on the stove. It seemed easy to put together and it was!

Here is how to make it..

I named it "Pan Bread"

INGREDIENTS for 6 breads

25 gram butter

250 ml milk

1/4 packet yeast 

1 tsp salt

2 tsp syrup

600 ml plain flour

HOW TO MAKE IT

1. Melt the butter and stir the milk in and heat the mixture to body temperature. Then add the yeast and whisk it so that the yeast dissolves.

2. Add salt, syrup and flour. Knead it to a dough. 

3. Let the dough rest for 30 minutes under a baking towel. 

4. Preheat the frying pan on medium heat. Do not add any oil or butter to the cooking. 

5. Bake them out round with a baking roller. Then put them in the pan. If you don't want them to puff 

 up, take a fork and make little holes over the entire bread. 

It's really tasty. I just put some butter on and ate it like that, but I was thinking that you could use it to make wraps or something like that.

/Amanda

Lemon Cheesecake - Divine, Easy and Quick

Half-term is here which means that I have a lot of time to do things with the children! And what could be better than spending some time in the kitchen with them? Me and my eleven year old boy started our day with making a really quick and easy cheesecake.

Lemon cheesecake with berries.

Ingredients:

10 digestive biscuits
75 grams melted butter
1 tablespoon clear honey
700 grams mascarpone cheese
3 lemons, both juice and zest
200 grams caster sugar
4 tablespoons icing sugar

Here's what you have to do:

• Take a springform cake tin and spread some butter in it. If you are, just like me, scared that the cake will get stuck you can put some greaseproof paper in the base. 
• Put the biscuits in a plastic bag and crush them. Add melted butter and honey and keep kneading the mixture inside the bag. 
• Tip the mixture in the cake tin and spread it, remember the sides. Use your fingertips or the backside of a spoon. Put in the fridge while your doing the filling. 
•  Mix the mascarpone cheese, lemon juice and zest (make sure you wash the lemons first) and caster sugar in a bowl. Taste the mixture and decide how much lemon taste you like. I love it so we had juice from all three lemons.
• Spoon the mixture in the tin with the digestive mixture and put in the fridge for at least two hours. If you want to serve this for a dinner party you can prepare the cheesecake the night before.
• Serve the cheesecake just as it is or with a garnish of your own, use your imagination! We used blueberries and raspberries - simple but delicious.

 /Frida

Caffe Piccolo - Review

London has a lot of great restaurants. For Frida and me, who are from a rural area in Sweden, living in the city gives us the opportunity to eat a Saturday brunch at a restaurant. After a ruff movie night (consisting of one and a half movie) we had made ourselves worthy of some Italian food. We went to an Italian restaurant here in Chiswick, called Caffe Piccolo. Why we chose this restaurant was mostly because of their great lunch deal, buy two courses for £7.5.

THE FOOD

Chicken, mushroom and cheese risotto.

Amanda

I chose garlic bread as a starter. It was divine! For main course I took the risotto with chicken, mushroom and cheese. The chicken was a little dry and I could have done with a bit more salt. All and all the risotto was good. It wasn't heavenly delicious, but definitely worth £7.5

The risotto: 6/10

Gratin with mozzarella and aubergines. 

Frida

I started of with garlic bread as well and I have to agree with Amanda. A lot of oil and a crispy edge, just the perfect bread. My main course was a gratin of  aubergine and mozzarella. Unfortunately the aubergines was not cooked enough and the whole thing was a bit blend even though the taste was okey. 

The aubergine with mozzarella: 5/10 

THE ATMOSPHERE

It was a nice atmosphere. The restaurant was decorated in a typical Italian stereotype way with matching music in the background. A bit too much of an Italian-restaurant-cliché but still cozy.

7/10

THE SERVICE

The service was actually not that good since the waiter was a bit rude towards us. He did not pay very much attention and he made us feel a bit in the way. Our food came out pretty quick, that was a plus though.

4/10 

THE PRICE

The price was GREAT! £7.5 for a lunch of two courses. You can't find it much cheaper, if you don't go to McDonald's that is...

9/10

Total: 6,2/10

/Amanda and Frida

A healthy snack, under 100 calories

Grilled seaweed are the perfect snack! It is tasty (the most important quality in a snack), it contains a lot of essential nutrients and it is low in calories and fat. Also seaweed has a lot of fibers. The entire bag of Grilled Seaweed Super Crisp contains 80 calories, 0 grams of fat and 25 grams of fiber. Perfect for those lazy days when you don't even bother to change out of your jammies and the only thing you do is to watch eight hours of your favorite series. You could eat three bags of Grilled Seaweed before you came up in the same amount of calories as there is in a small bag of chips. Amazing!

Grilled Seaweed Super Crisp

The only bad thing with the Grilled Seaweed is that it is probably not available in your local food store. Go and look in the closest Thai or Chinese food store, they usually sell them there. 

/Amanda

Making dumplings

I love Asian food and cooking. I love wok, I love sushi and I love Tikka Masala. Many people are afraid of cooking Asian because it sounds hard, but it really isn't! For example dumplings. It looks and seems complicated. Therefor I didn't dare to try and make some until just a while ago. It wasn't that scary actually. Took some time to do them, but it wasn't hard.

My homemade dumplings 

INGREDIENTS 
What you'll need for the wrappers:
1 ½ cup plain flour
1 tsp salt
75 ml boiling water
50 ml water
2 tsp vegetable oil
Chopsticks

What you'll need for the stuffing:
500g minced pork
2 tbsp light soy sauce
2 tbsp cornflour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp white pepper
2 tsp sesame oil
½ chopped onion

HOW TO MAKE IT
1. Mix the the flour and the salt in a bowl.
2. Pour the boiling water in and stir together quickly with the chopsticks.
3. Add the water and oil and mix until you have a nice dough.
4. Put some clinging film over the dough, place it in the fridge and let it rest there  for an hour. You can make the stuffing in the meantime.
5. Just mix all the ingredients for the stuffing in a bowl. Place it in the fridge.
6. Boil some water in a pot. Place a mesh strainer and a lid on top (make sure the water is low enough not to touch the strainer even while boiling).
7. Take the dough out and roll it into a cylinder. Cut it in half and then cut the halfs in half, so you end up with four equally big parts.
8. Roll the dough out using a baking roller. Use something round (like a glass) with a diameter of around 8 centimeter, to cut out dough circles. Make about 7 from each quarter-dough piece.
9. Place a spoonful of stuffing in a wrapper. Fold the wrapper over the stuffing. Then take your finger and press lightly on the dough surrounding the stuffing to push out all the air. This is important, since the dumpling will break in the steaming process if there is air inside it.
10. Wet your finger and drag it around the edge of the wrapper before you seal it.
11. Take a fork and push it around the edge of the wrapper.
12. Place the dumplings in the mesh strainer (making sure that they do not touch) and put the lid on. Steam them for 15 min.


You can serve them with rice and some soy sauce for dipping.
I got the recipe form One Bite More, just made some minor tweaks to it. One Bite More is a wonderful food blog by the way!

/Amanda